IRS Agent Gets Nearly 3 Years for Soliciting Bribe

(CN) - A Minnesota federal judge sentenced an Internal Revenue Service worker to 33 months in prison for soliciting a $9,700 bribe from a company he audited.

Roger Anthony Coombs, 41, pleaded guilty in August to asking the owners of a small Minnesota business for a bribe to report that the business owed less in federal taxes.

"Rooting out public corruption is one the FBI's highest priorities," FBI Special Agent Ralph Boelter of the Minneapolis field office said in a statement.

Coombs, who began working for the IRS in 2009, asked the business owners to meet him without their accountant, and he told them he could knock there tax obligations down to $11,000 from $60,000 if they paid him $9,700, the FBI said.

One of the owners recorded the meeting and reported Coombs, so investigators witnessed the IRS agent accept bribe payments.

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